The Night is Darkest
by KeepCounting
Summary: 'She's seen nights that aren't dark, because vampire eyes are hardened and illuminate even the darkest of corners'. Introspect on Selene at the start of the first movie. The proud, icy daughter of Viktor. Oneshot


_This has (vague) spoilers for all three movies I think. Selene-centric, set just at the start of the first movie._

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**The Night is Darkest**

'_The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming'_

_Harvey Dent, (The Dark Knight)_

This city never sleeps. Like an endless tide, it grows and moves, like a blur before her eyes. Countless cars and trains hurry past, people walking in their suits, their worn-down jackets, briefcases and backpacks filled with things that will turn to dust long before she even thinks of taking a final breath.

She's young, but she's seen what is to see. She's seen her family murdered before her eyes, she's seen the sunset for the very last time and she's seen nights that aren't dark, because vampire eyes are hardened and illuminate even the darkest of corners.

By the time she's a hundred, her mother's smile has been overwritten by Viktor's. Two hundred and she can no longer remember her father's voice, and by the time she's four hundred, her nieces and sister's voices are a mixture of speech she doesn't understand, like a language she used to know, but doesn't anymore.

Sometimes, she thinks that she is more fortunate, than those who are born vampires. She's seen the sun, felt the cool breeze of day. She's tasted human food, so different from blood, though the taste is almost lost as well.

But then there are the stares, the whispers. _Viktor's daughter. _But not really. Like a little lost child, taken in. She hates the years where Viktor is gone, where Amelia, with her cold glares, rule, where Marcus is in control, the way he looks at her, as if he knows something, something that she too should know, but doesn't.

_Viktor's daughter. _That's how he always refers to her. Never _Selene_ or _Captain, _her current title among the Death Dealers. Nothing she's ever accomplished on her own.

_Viktor's daughter. _

It makes her feel sick and angry, because she's _proud _of being the daughter of the greatest clan-leader, but he makes it sound as if it's a curse.

When she's told to hunt down Tanis and imprison him, the look he gives her just before she shoots him in the shoulder, almost makes her stop. He looks at her as if he's seen a ghost. And when the shot falls and his arm bleeds, he looks up and smiles at her, waiting for her to drop dead. And she wants to scream and yell (_I am Viktor's daughter) _because Tanis too thinks that it is not something to be proud of. And it shouldn't matter, because he is insignificant, a traitor to his race (the worst kind of scum, even worse than the lycans who slaughtered her family). And she doesn't care that Marcus is the eldest of them all, the direct descendant of Corvinus, because he could never be as powerful as Viktor. She isn't Markus' daughter, and so she doesn't care. She steels herself and ignores the icy glares from Erika, the lustful gazes from Kraven and she tells herself that she will be strong, that she will be the best, that she will avenge her family (the family that she doesn't remember), and that she will make Viktor proud.

She is unyielding and loyal and she kills without hesitation. She reaches to the top, so high that she can almost stand on the clouds, and still, Marcus looks at her as if she is to be pitied and Tanis' laughter rings in her ear like an imprint of his mocking.

_Selene, the icy, powerful daughter of Viktor. _

That's all she needs. She's six hundred years old and she can no longer remember the faces of her family. She can't feel the sun against her skin, only the night is there and that is spent in killing, bathing in blood and listening to the howls of the beasts she kills. Every time, the adrenaline pumps through her (_poisonous) _veins and she wonders if today is the day she truly dies.

This city never sleeps.

Everything is dark beneath her, a deep void. The rain is falling, hitting her hair and drizzling down her face, her throat to her clothes. She's soaked through, dark strands clinging to skin, but she doesn't notice it. When she's not watching the droplets roll of her fingertips, she focuses her eyes on the crowd of humans underneath her. She stays like this for several minutes and there's a faint echo in the back of her head, like the sound of a vampire sucking something dry _(the human form poised over her sister's still body, blood drizzling down his face, his throat to his clothes. He's soaked through, his blue eyes shining…) _and then her eyes focus on something in the crowd beneath her.

The two lycans push their way through the mass of people, towards the station. The prey they've been waiting for are here.

Selene drops over the edge she's been standing on. She feels nothing as she falls, but she can clearly see the blood dripping from Tanis arm and the comforting arms wrapped around her, while she's still human and fragile. Sharp fangs pierce her throat and Selene hits the ground. She walks forward, her long coat flailing behind her like bat's wings.

The night isn't dark, because vampire eyes are hardened and illuminate even the darkest of corners. When Marcus calls '_Viktor's daughter' _in, Selene always finds herself wondering if her eyes really reaches as far as she would like them to.

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_**Proverb:** 'The night is darkest just before the dawn'  
__**Meaning:** There is hope, even in the worst of circumstances._

_There is a beautiful saying amongst the Irish peasantry to inspire hope under adverse circumstances:- "Remember," they say, "that the darkest hour of all, is the hour before day._"


End file.
